1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a pedal powered catamaran wherein the operator is seated between the pontoons of the catamaran and wherein the pontoons have a seat thereon for additional passengers.
2. Background of the Prior Art
For people who love to be on the water, the exists a panoply of water vessels that can be used to get onto the water in order to satisfy the nautical urge. Such vessels range from a simple floating lounger or inner tube to a giant yacht or cruise ship and vessels of all sizes and types in between. While motor powered boats, large and small tend, to be fun and exhilarating, many small boats find favor with water going folks. One small boat that is enjoyed by many is the pedal boat, which typically comprises a small 4 or 5 seat boat that is pedaled by one or two folks in front seats with the pedaling driving a paddle that pushes the boat through the water. These boats, which are useful on lakes and other small bodies of water, are a great and inexpensive way to get onto the water. Although they do not travel very fast, they can still provide for a fun filled day.
Although pedal boats are quite fun and relatively straightforward to operate and maintain, their slow speed proves a limitation to some. Due to the architecture of a typical pedal boat, the pedals rotated by the pedallers directly drive the paddle wheel. As a result no mechanical advantage is gained by the operators. To overcome this lack of speed in pedal boats, pedal catamarans have been proposed. Such catamarans, while still relatively simple in design and thus relatively inexpensive so as to be affordable to those who want to enjoy the water at low cost, employ a drive system that gives the operators a mechanical advantage, thereby increasing the speed that can be achieved by the vessel, and effectively, the range. Such mechanical advantage is typically achieved by having the pedals operatively connected to either a paddle or a screw that drives the boat by either a chain drive or a gear drive, which drive provides the advantage. Many variations of pedal catamarans can be found in the art, and such catamarans are finding favor with a wide variety of water going people.
One limitation that present day catamarans have is the limited passenger capacity relative to the size of the vessel. Unlike a typical pedal boat, wherein the passengers are located above the pontoons of the boat, on a catamaran, the passengers are located on the platform that joins the pontoons of the vessel. As many pedal catamarans that achieve mechanical advantage have the drive seat—the seat or seats wherein the pedallers are seated—at the lateral midpoint of the platform, seating configuration for the other passengers can be tricky. While the width and/or length of the platform can be increased in order to provide more real estate for passengers, such catamaran expansion reduces the low cost advantage of this class of boats and also makes transport of the boat between home and the launch site more difficult.
Accordingly, there exists a need in the art for a catamaran that has a large passenger capacity to size ratio by utilizing the available surface real estate efficiently. Such a catamaran must be relatively low cost so that it serves as an entry level-type of boat for water lovers, while allowing for reasonable speed and range of the vessel. Such a catamaran must be relatively easy to load onto and transport by the transport vehicle that takes the boat between storage and launch site. Ideally, such a catamaran is of relatively simple design and construction and is simple to use and maintain.